If Google produced iron ore as well as providing an internet search engine, it really would have been conflicted. Even as it was, the decision to “pull out” of China (all the way to Hong Kong) was finely balanced. Google decided that its brand, which depends on its image as a champion of liberalism, was worth more than a slice of China's still-nascent online advertising market. That judgment became easier as Beijing grew more heavy-handed in policing the internet and as Chinese hackers – with or without the authorities' blessing – grew more adept at tunnelling into Google's databases.
But Google has hedged its bets. For the moment, it will retain a research and development presence, as well as a sales team, in the mainland. By taking advantage of the “one-country, two-server” system – an unintended relic of British colonialism – it is hoping to have its cookie and eat it too. Chinese users who log on to Google.cn will automatically be diverted to an uncensored site in Hong Kong. Google has thus fulfilled its pledge of “doing no evil”. If Beijing wants to play the baddie by blocking some search results – and earlier this week it was doing so with heavy-booted abandon – so be it.
Google's decision has presented Chinese authorities with a quandary. Some officials have sensibly sought to characterise the pull-out as a purely commercial decision of little broader significance. To escalate the affair risks jeopardising China's official stance of being welcoming to business and further poisoning already strained relations with the US. More, to paint the withdrawal in ideological hues risks putting Beijing into conflict with a subset of its own netizens who are embarrassed that a great company such as Google cannot operate freely in a great country such as China.